


with substance and wisdom of gold

by unorigelnal (jayburding)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pern Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:59:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7639393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayburding/pseuds/unorigelnal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bull makes a point of not dealing with the Weyrs- Weyr business, after all, is Weyr business- but somehow he can't seem to avoid falling in with the dragons. (Maybe it's Ataashi.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	with substance and wisdom of gold

Ataashi was an accident. A poorly timed retrieval of an ill-gotten fire lizard nest left Bull with an egg in hand the moment it split neatly down the middle and a squalling hatchling sprawled out into his palm. The whole nest had gone up a moment later and the ensuing chaos had brought every member of the household running. Bull didn’t recall dropping the hatchling, but she hadn’t been in hand as her brothers and sisters took flight and people started screaming. In the confusion, and subsequent retreat, Bull hadn’t even realised he still had a passenger until he’d checked his pack later and found a sleeping hatchling where his rations should be.

Qunari weren’t meant to have dragons, even the tiny firedrakes that at full size could curl comfortably in Bull’s hand. He had to explain to his superiors when it was clear Ataashi was staying, a stubborn ball of gold attached to one horn that only detached herself to demand feeding, but it had been “allowed” so to speak because a dragon’s choice could not be overturned. If Ataashi had no intention of leaving, Bull couldn’t make her.

So Ataashi stayed, and put away an alarming amount of food for a dragon that pound for pound could barely square up to a nug. She stole his things if she liked them, and went through his horn balm faster than he did as her skin split with her prodigious growth. She was demanding and imperious, hardly unexpected for a gold, and could maintain a running commentary for days. The Chargers adored her, particularly when she took to scolding Bull, which was frequently. Still, when the little drake curled up in the crook of his neck at night, the blue-green glow of her eyes whirling gently in the dark, Bull felt every inch of his privilege at being chosen by her.

Weyr business is Weyr business, so they never get any work where the dragons are. Beyond the occasional passing interaction with the city watch dragons, the closest they get is watching the sweep riders pass overhead, and on one memorable occasion a full wing from Montsimmard flying through. They are beautiful, there’s no other word for it, but the Vyrantium wings that flew in Seheron had been beautiful too, before the flames descended.

Ataashi doesn’t quite know what to make of them, which is more comforting than Bull would willingly admit. Up close, they’re too big for her to understand, but even with enough distance for her to see the whole dragon, she treats them more as invaders to her space. She snaps and snarls at creatures she doesn’t quite realise are thousands of times her size for getting too close to what’s hers, and Bull loves her for it.

When the sky tears open and the world looks set to end, Bull extends an offer to the figurehead of the newborn Inquisition. He can't do any less. Ataashi goes to Haven with Krem, reappearing briefly after the fourth night, her swift whirling eyes yellow with anxiety, to chitter furiously to Dalish and scold at Bull before vanishing again. They’re on their way back, though Ataashi doesn’t seem too happy about it.

The Herald is a tiny thing, a slip of an elf even by the slender measures of Dalish and Skinner, but she already holds herself in a way that makes Bull stand up straighter when she addresses him. On his shoulder, Ataashi churrs away as she normally does, but without ever taking her yellow eyes off of the Herald.

“Do you know anything about dragons?” Ana asks once they’ve talked terms and the casks have been re-secured for travel to Haven. 

Bull raises his eyebrow and glances up at Ataashi, dozing uneasily up on his horns now. “Depends what you mean. I know Ataashi, but down here they don’t call what she is a dragon.” 

“I was thinking a little bigger,” Ana clarifies. “A lot bigger actually. Weyr dragon big.”

“I know enough,” he says, because he’s going to get answers to the obvious questions without asking. “How to try and avoid them, face them without dying.”

It’s verging on blasphemy in the Andrastian countries to speak poorly of the Weyrs, but Ana is Dalish, and he knows without looking particularly closely that she understands. Dalish tales about the Weyrs didn’t have happy endings.

“The mark’s the least of my worries right now,” Ana admits after the silence has stretched for nearly a mile. It sparks in her closed fist as if responding to the reference, which Bull would very much like to think it is not capable of doing.

Bull doesn’t ask, and Ana doesn’t explain further, drawing deeper inwards as the mark sputters and sparks. She looks less a leader then, more a teenager caught in the middle of a war she was never meant to be involved in. He does her the courtesy of not seeing it, for now.

In Haven, he quickly understands. A bronze, a brown and two blues perch on what remains of the fire heights after the Conclave explosion, but none of them are Ana’s, though they’re quick enough to greet her as she arrives. It’s not them that has Ana all but dragging him through the centre of the far too small camp. No, it’s something else entirely.

There is a young queen in the Chantry, as round and uncoordinated as Ataashi was years back, though where Ataashi could once fit in Dalish’s cupped hands, this hatchling is already as tall as Bull at the shoulder. She is gold but not, her hide printed with green that shifts and warps along her skin as she moves. Everything about her reeks of the Fade. 

Ana is watching him, her shoulders drawn up tight. She’s waiting for him to say something, to scold or scorn while she touches her dragon’s strange hide with the same gentle reverence he has for the tiny queen who claims him. 

“Emmalath, this is Bull,” Ana says and dares him to say something. Her little queen watches him too, crooning quietly to her rider as her purpling eyes fix him in place. Caution, but no fear. She is not afraid of him.

They’re going to have a field day with his report in Par Vollen, but the Herald’s queen can’t be anything short of Fade-touched, and they’ll want to know about that more than they’ll object to his consorting with domestic drakes and their riders.

He doesn’t know how to greet a queen, but Ataashi’s teeth in his ear give him a prompt, only releasing him when he sketches something like a bow. Those purple eyes shift slowly blue, and finally turn from him altogether. Ana’s hard lines soften as the tension ebbs, and she smiles, young again. She definitely needs to do that more often.

“So you’ve got the Seeker’s dragon on the heights,” he says. “What do you need me for?”

“Depends,” she replies. “How much time do you have?”


End file.
